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Politics / Political Sciences

Political Sciences

History and theory of political science

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The labels we attach today to distinguish political regimes have histories. Applying them without understanding these histories is sometimes anachronistic and ethnocentric. I have little new to say about “democracy” and “dictatorship”, so that the discussion of these concepts is just a reminder. “Authoritarianism”, however, is a dubious neologism. I advance two claims: (1) In all regimes the power to command and be obeyed entails some dose of reason-giving, (2) What distinguishes regimes is the form and the extent to which the authority of rulers is monopolised by physical force. I conclude that the concept of “authoritarianism” adds little to the distinction between democracy and dictatorship.

Neo-liberalism is, undoubtedly, today’s dominant economical and political ideology. This paper is an attempt to give a general outline of where it derived from, what was it based on, and how it became the leading driving force in the field of economy and politics.

Our thinking about democracy has been fundamentally reshaped by populism, and the relationship between populism and democracy has become one of the key questions in the academic literature. This study aims to provide an overview
of key features of the political literature that foregrounds populism in the context of democracy. It is important to stress that this is only one part of the literature on populism: many consider populism as a distinct ideology or as a technique of political communication; this review will only consider research that connects populism directly with democracy, which I consider to be important to
bring us to a fuller understanding of the phenomenon. This study will highlight in particular two streams of thinking, one characterizing populism as a ‘pathology’ of democracy, the other theorizing it as a subtype of democracy.

The paper analyzes the concept of collective improvisation and draws out its potentials for social and political theory. Translating the ideas of collective improvisation from their original context in the theatre into the field of political thought, I argue that they offer a new understanding of political action by reevaluating the concepts of dissensus (Rancière) and community (Nancy), as well as the ways in which politics as a system needs to produce collectively binding decisions (Luhmann). I conclude that the ideas inherent in the practice of collective improvisation, as it has been developed within the tradition of modern theatre improvisation, subvert our intuitive ways of thinking about politics and thereby offer an alternative model of being and acting together.

Adam Smith considered poverty and unemployment as push factors for migration and wages high enough to provide for a worker and his family as a pull factor. Migration as a free mobility of labour leads to an optimal allocation of the factor commodity labour as well as changes of employment which necessary to equalise wages between different geographical entities. The consequences are not only promoting economic growth and prosperity, but also reducing poverty. Smith has no contemporary empirical support for his theory.

The article examines the concept of the political, and it’s relationship to the Late Soviet Socialism, adressed in the Sovietology oeuvre of Proffesor Alexei Yurchak. The question is raised whether the claim about inner paradoxes of the late Soviet system as a single discursive formation can be substantiated without addressing the probability of more fundamental discursive divisions, splits and multiplicities structuring life of the post-Stalinist epoch. The critical analysis of such concepts as „authoritative discourse“ and discursive „performative shift“ reveals contradictions of author‘s conceptual attempt to explain the legitimacy of the late Soviet system, as well as elucidates why the issue of the Soviet as the political remains suspended in the analytical shema of Yurchak.

The right of audience, in common law, is the right of a lawyer to represent a client in a court. Royalty, the Pope and some Presidents grant audiences. What does the power to grant an audience consist in? And what does it mean to demand an audience (with)? Through a reading of the way in which the vocabulary of theatre, acting and audience is involved in the generation of a theory of state by Hobbes and Rousseau, this paper looks to reopen these questions as a political resource for us to re-imagine and refigure our ways of being together. Through readings of Hobbes and Rousseau, it looks at the ways in which the performance of politics creates the public, the representative and the sovereign and the ways these figures interact. It proposes an alternative role for theatre as places of affective learning and a civic ethics of playfulness, in which the auto-institution of the state as an imagined collectivity is fully assumed.

During the nineteen months when Minister Anna Fotyga was in office, Polish foreign policy underwent significant changes. The style of politics also changed. Unlike her predecessors, Fotyga did not aspire to the role of chief architect of foreign policy – the president and prime minister played the leading roles in this regard. There was close cooperation between the main authorities with responsibility for foreign policy. At the same time, divisions between the ruling camp and the opposition were deepening.Fotyga’s approach to international challenges remained in line with the programme of the Law and Justice (PiS) party. The EU’s support for Polish demands on the embargo imposed by Moscow at the summit in Samara can be considered a success. In contrast, Fotyga’s attempts to increase energy security through closer cooperation with the countries of Central Asia, bypassing Russia, failed. The mission of Fotyga as head of diplomacy was interrupted as a result of early parliamentary elections.Fotyga’s biggest problem, as a politician rather than as a foreign minister, was her negative media image, which was a result of the political rivalry between PiS and the Civic Platform (PO) party.The activity of Minister Fotyga is examined in the context of the conditions of the international system, internal policies and her role as an individual decision-maker. The internal conditions – i.e., the strong polarization of the political scene due to the rivalry between PiS and PO – were the most important factor in her activity.

The efforts to scientize history starting from the 19th century focused on the events and the performers, and imposed narrative history as a “scientific” approach until 1920s. The Annales School - established in 1929 – rejected the aforementioned efforts to scientize history and accepted a problem-based analysis as opposed to an event-based approach. It emphasized the necessity of an analysis of the era and the conditions surrounding the historical actor in order to understand the actor’s practices. Therefore, it highlighted the urgency of an interdisciplinary work. Political History, which is regarded as the earliest discipline of International Relations, formerly centered upon events and characters, and was confined to practices of statesmen. Thanks to the emergence of the Annales School, it enriched both its subject matter and methodology. It was influenced by the Annales School’s holistic approach. However, the enrichment has been limited to the Western civilization and analyses of the Ottomans in Turkish Political Historiography. This resulted in limitation of Annales’ holistic understanding of history to only a certain geographical/cultural region.

This article is an attempt to present historical development of the concept of the political. Through positions of Carl Schmitt, Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau, Jean-Luc Nancy and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, this article demonstrates three different understandings of the relations between politics and the political. While Carl Schmitt understands the political as the precondition of a state and defines it through the antagonistic relation friend/enemy, Mouffe and Laclau determine the political as agonistic, transforming at the same time the enmity into the relations between adversaries. Instead of Schmitt’s idea of enmity, as well as Habermas’s deliberative definition of democracy, the two theoreticians suggest a concept of agonistic pluralism should be introduced which would, along with the agreement, necessarily include disagreement on political matters. Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe, similarly to Mouffe and Laclau, and following Heidegger, bring the political into relation with philosophical and define it as a constant questioning of current politics. They believe that every agreement necessarily leads to totalitarianism so that the political thus always needs to be opposed to power and government.

In over 2,000 years of existence, approaches in political science evolved from philosophical and normative reflections on various forms of organization of the ancient world to contemporary interdisciplinary approaches based on refining concepts and theories accumulated over time and the use of complex research methodologies, own or borrowed from related fields of studies such as sociology, political psychology, econometrics, advanced statistics. Although quantitative approaches prevails in contemporary research, does not lack political philosophy studies, theoretical and ideological approaches, inspired by everyday realities and empirical research results.

In his dissenting opinion in Lochner v. New York case, O. W. Holmes famously stated that general propositions do not decide concrete cases. There are many others who claim similarly. Among them F. Schauer states that such concepts as liberty, equality do not strongly determine answers in legal questions – although not totally vague, they require additional premises in order to be applied in concrete cases. This study, among other questions, focuses on what these additional premises are when it comes to application of legal principles. Besides this, a goal is raised to seek out what views on application of legal principles are dominating in jurisprudence.
Perhaps the most important topic in the study is the matter of two perspectives to reasoning with legal principles. One of them is linked with judicial restraint, it is based on a view that contents of a legal principle can be discovered through earlier cases where it made impact on decisions of judges or legislators.
The other perspective is based on argument that positive law (the official and explicit legal texts) is not sufficient for proper dispute resolution and this is where legal principles come to aid – they are the artery through which law is supplied with moral, practical reasons.
Based on these views the reconstructive and developmental method to apply principles are contemplated. The former is perceived as analysis and comparison of earlier cases where the disputed principle had impact on judge‘s or legislator‘s decision. Among factors which ought to be evaluated are similarity of these cases to the case which is being dealt with and how widespread is the principle (the variety of these cases). The developmental method is characterized as relying on factors which lie beyond boundaries of formal explicitly expressed law (practical arguments, arbitrator‘s inner sense of justice, etc.). Proper application of this method inter alia can be ensured by the principles of J. Rawls‘ inner position, by arbitrator‘s dissociation from peripheral inappropriate, subjective factors.
Evaluation of these methods leads to conclusion that the reconstructive method contributes to legal certainty, easier foreseeing of judicial decisions, includes lesser risk of impartiality and similar factors, so it is superior when there is no or minimum need to develop the law. However, developmental method has the advantage of ensuring material justice and practical outcomes of judicial decision when it comes to cases where there is a strong need to develop the law.

It is often claimed that states have territorial rights, and that these rights include the right to exclude people who seek admission to their territory. In this paper I will examine whether the most defensible account of territorial rights can provide support to the right to exclude. I will discuss three types of theories of territorial rights. The first account links the right of states to exclude to the prior right of individuals to freedom of association, which is said to include the right not to associate and to dissociate. The second is a Lockean theory that grounds the territorial rights of states, and hence their right to exclude, in the prior right of individuals to private property in the land that constitutes the territory of the state. I argue that these accounts have independently implausible implications, regardless of their implications for the immigration debate. The third account is a Kantian theory that bases the territorial jurisdiction of states on individuals’ duty to create, sustain and submit themselves to a shared system of law that is a necessary condition of guaranteeing their rights and of discharging their duties towards one another. I will argue that the Kantian account is superior to its current alternatives. However, I also suggest that it cannot ground a broad right to exclude.

What are we referring to when we speak about the history of Romanian ethnology or anthropology? It seems easy, even obvious, but the very field(s) of what we are referring to by these academic labels do not just exist “out there” waiting to be approached and understood. As a matter of fact, „ethnology” was a term used only incidentally in Romanian professional jargon before 1990, whereas the term „anthropology” found use alone in the field of physical anthropology. What is more: beyond the institutional borders (which took time to emerge and achieve legitimacy), one might question where the limits of „ethnological thinking” lie in the broad context of the social thinking of early modern times, where the involved elites shared an interest in „the being of the people” and most approaches were conceived as „national sciences”? Contrary to what one might think, there is not an easy and ready-made answer to this question. Let us then ask what we should refer to when we speak about the history of Romanian ethnology? We might begin with the classical couple of folklore studies and ethnography, which both have a long and rich tradition in Romanian modern culture. The next step would be to link them in a mutually comprehensive approach, despite the general practice of presenting them independently in specifi c histories. In doing so, we could adopt the recommendation of an international conference of European “folk ethnographers” held in 1955 in Arnhem to use the general term of “national ethnology” when referring to all kinds of scholars of “folk culture” within a national realm (see Tamás, 1968). But to frame the question in this fashion would be misleading to some extent. Folk studies and ethnography transcend the “academic” realm in their claim to have the last word on “the being of the people”, as Pârvan explicitly states when defi ning ethnography. Folkloric species and categories, as defi ned by the different schools and approaches, have as their only common point “their documentary value, all the goods of the fi eld [of folk studies, n.n.] being documents of popular mentality” (Bîrlea, 1969:7). Thus, the two disciplines share, in fact, their object of interest; but in doing so, they also share it with many other disciplines and approaches. Indeed, “the being of the people” is a general concern of the national elites during this entire period, most of them contributing in a more or less specialized way to its investigation. [...]

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